A wide variety of vehicles including trucks, particularly pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, have one or more tow hooks for towing or pulling purposes. The tow hooks are typically mounted on the vehicle's front rail and extend through apertures formed in the vehicle's bumper or fascia to project outwards. As an alternative arrangement, tow hooks project from beneath the bumper in certain types of vehicles so as to not detract from the vehicle's outer aesthetics.
Tow hooks are typically formed from a solid material, such as steel. The typical tow hook assembly includes a backing plate to which the tow hook is attached. The backing plate is shaped to receive the tow hook. Conventionally, the backing plate is detachably fixed to the front rail of the vehicle.
According to known tow hook architecture, the tow hook mounting structure is designed to achieve towing strength mainly in tension and to purposefully detach in a high end impact event. The purpose of allowing the tow hook to detach during such a impact event is to ensure that the axial crush of the frame front horn, thereby effectively absorbing crash energy during the impact event.
While this approach generally provides satisfactory results for many frame structures, the axial crush is not attainable for a curved vehicle frame. The curved frame is frequently essential for vehicle compatibility and package requirements. Accordingly, energy absorption during an impact event has to be manage through bending deformation, particularly in the area of a backup structure where high crash pulses are often observed due to a reduction of effective mass caused by the engine being stationary at the later stage of the impact event.
Accordingly, known approaches to tow hook architecture do not produce satisfactory results, particularly when used in conjunction with a vehicle having a curved frame. As in so many areas of vehicle technology, there is always room for improvement related to tow hook systems for a vehicle.